Armed with axes, Bangla Bhai and his gang stormed into the house of prominent Awami League (AL) leader Tarapada Poddar, 60, at Gaola village of Mollahat and wounded him severely in August 2002. The militants were wearing police uniform during the attack.

After the incident, police arrested the militant leader and his cohorts at the house of Moulavi Hekmatullah of the same village in a robbery case filed with the Mollahat Police Station. The law enforcers recovered one bomb, three axes, four black masks, four sets of police uniforms and a cellphone from the possession of Bangla Bhai at that time.

He went into hiding after being released from Bagerhat Jail on November 28, 2002. It is alleged that SI Humayun Kabir of Bagerhat Detective Branch (DB), also the investigation officer (IO) of the robbery case, helped the militant leader get released by submitting a weak charge sheet.

Bangla Bhai visited Khulna several times in disguise last year along with Abdur Rahman to meet JMB cadres and monitor the militant trainings held in different mosques.

In September, 2005 JMB Khulna district Amir Masud bin Ishaque was arrested by Khulna DB police. In his confessional statement to Metropolitan Magistrate Shafina Begum, he admitted the involvement of Bangla Bhai and Abdur Rahman in organising training of JMB cadres on how to make bombs and grenades and use AK-47 rifles.

These trainings were mostly held during midnight at Ahle Hadith mosques at Daulatpur in Khulna city and at Icegati village in Rupsha upazila of Khulna district.